


could we pretend that we're in love?

by sorbusaucuparias



Series: tumblr prompts [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 03:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4903687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorbusaucuparias/pseuds/sorbusaucuparias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous said: prompt: “I could kiss you right now!”<br/>~</p><p>Question: What do you get when you shove six people into a Jeep, one that’s barely held together by duct tape and smells so strongly of blood and sweat, and drive until you can barely keep your eyes open?</p><p>Answer: A very tired Lydia Martin shoving Stiles’ shoulder and telling him to take the next right because she’d rather fall asleep on an under a blacklight, Jackson Pollock-resembling motel bedspread than die in a fiery car crash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	could we pretend that we're in love?

**Author's Note:**

> this was a tumblr prompt that got away from me. i think it turned out okay but you tell me.

Question: What do you get when you shove six people into a Jeep, one that’s barely held together by duct tape and smells so strongly of blood and sweat, and drive until you can barely keep your eyes open?

Answer: A very tired Lydia Martin shoving Stiles’ shoulder and telling him to take the next right because she’d rather fall asleep on an under a blacklight, Jackson Pollock-resembling motel bedspread than die in a fiery car crash.

“I could kiss you right now,” Lydia murmurs, resting her chin on the shoulder rest of the driver’s seat, when Stiles flicks his indicator and begins to drive toward the motel.

“I’m flattered but if you did that, I’d veer off the road and kill us all,” Stiles replies with a small, spiritless smile. His eyes leave the road to look at her briefly before his attention is brought back. “It’d be totally worth all these guys haunting me for all eternity, just FYI.”

She thinks that’s the first time she’s heard him make a joke in weeks. It’s why she sends him a smile that she knows he sees in the rear-view mirror before settling her head more comfortably on the driver’s seat.

This is how it’s been since Malia left with Peter. The bastard’s a masterful manipulator; if she didn’t hate him so much that she actually dreams about slowly disembowelling him with a blunt object, Lydia would actually consider asking him to teach her his Machiavellian ways. He knows how to play a mark and he played Malia so flawlessly that she packed up her things and left without a word to follow him. In fact, the only way that the pack found information about them was through visiting Eichen House and talking to his old cellmate. That’s how they know Peter’s planning to use his own daughter as bait to lure the Desert Wolf in; he is literally throwing his daughter to the wolf for his own selfish means.

They were chasing down a lead, the first one that Braeden’s been able to send them, which is why she, Stiles, Scott, Kira, Liam and Mason are squashed into the Jeep. The lead ended up being a dead end but not before they got into a physical altercation with another pack of werewolves. They were the victorious ones yet they still ended up walking away with bumps and bruises and gashes and cuts. Lydia’s bottom lip is cut and swollen and she wishes that being a banshee gave her the supernatural ability of advanced healing.

But _no_.

No, Lydia gets the white noise and the voices and the irrepressible, harrowing screams.

She’s the harbinger of death, the canary in the coal mine, the honey bee susceptible to air pollution, the hag hidden under the mask of a beautiful woman.

And she had almost screamed for him.

Lydia doesn’t tell Stiles that but she has this creeping feeling under her skin that tells her he already knows. He knows that he narrowly missed being eviscerated by one of the werewolves, the one that Scott flung against a tree trunk. She doesn’t have to tell him what he already knows.

It’s the problem with the role, isn’t it?

He’s the out of shape human, the one who gets a cramp in his side if he runs for longer than 10 seconds. He doesn’t workout unless it’s lacrosse season and even then, he does the bare minimum. He swings a baseball bat in lieu of a katana or claws or supernatural strength. Mason and Lydia don’t have any supernatural enhancements either but they’ve learnt how to fight to compensate; Stiles continues to rely on his brains and his plans and his _bat_ rather than face the fact that it’s an ‘ _adapt or die’_ situation now. They’ve entered a whole new realm of terrifying that eclipses alphas and genocidal geriatrics, where they need more than just sheer dumb luck to survive.

But Lydia doesn’t need to tell him that.

Stiles already knows.

When they arrive at the motel, it’s barely occupied so they manage to rent 3 rooms for the night. Lydia and Kira are bunking together, Stiles and Scott together and Liam and Mason together; after the hours spent cramped together in the Jeep, it’s the least claustrophobic choice they can make.

There are a few noises coming from the room next to hers and Kira’s, which has Lydia almost longing for the sounds of death she heard at the last motel they all stayed at, but after banging her fist on the wall, the noises become more muffled. It’s a small victory, she knows that, yet there’s a certain joy that washes over her at the realization that she won’t have to listen to the loud, practically pornographic moans of the couple next door to them.

“Do you want to go for a shower first?” Lydia asks, pulling the towels from the cabinet before turning to look at Kira.

She honestly can’t decide who’s having a harder time with Malia’s departure: Stiles or Kira. Malia may be part of the pack, Scott may be her alpha and Liam may have a small crush on her but Lydia, Scott, Mason and Liam don’t have the same relationship with the werecoyote that Stiles and Kira do. Stiles is her... something – Lydia doesn’t know what they could be classified as now that they’re no longer dating but she doesn’t think that the blanket term ‘friends’ defines it – while Kira is her best friend and has been for a while. Lydia’s not sure if they have a friendship as close as she and Allison had had but if they do, Lydia’s entirely aware of the pain that Kira must be feeling.

“You can go,” Kira finally says before sitting on the bed. Is it possible that the sound of someone sitting down could be sad? If it is, then it’s the one of the saddest sit downs Lydia’s ever heard.

She wants to say something. There must be something that she can say to alleviate some of the pain that Kira’s feeling. There are literally thousands of words in her vocabulary and yet Lydia can’t use any of them to form sentences that could console her friend. No one could when Lydia lost Allison either.

So Lydia simply nods and walks into the bathroom. She hangs her towel over the railing and turns on the hot water, letting the room slowly fill with steam as she stares at herself in the mirror. There’s bags under her eyes that she knows have been permanent fixtures on her face since they rescued her from Eichen House. Her hair has a sheen of grease because they’ve been on the road for a few days and tiny bottles of shampoo can only do so much; if Lydia had known how long they would following Braeden’s lead, she might have put more effort into packing. Her dress is torn along the hem, a reminder of the fight they had found themselves in, but Lydia knows that it’s better for there to be holes in her dress than holes in her. The worst thing, she thinks as she wipes the condensation off the mirror to continue staring at herself, is the mixture of dried blood and dirt under her nails.

There was a point in her life when every strand of her hair was perfectly placed, her clothes were perfectly chosen and her nails were perfectly manicured.

There was a point in her life where her life was seemingly perfect.

Now she helps fight the monsters that go bump in the night and foretells death and lets herself ignore her feelings for one of her best friends because he’s heartbroken over someone else and she can’t let herself get her heart broken when he rejects her. Of all the boys she’s ever known and fallen for, Stiles is both the best and the worst. He holds the ability to make her happy and decimate her and all it would take is a few words to do either; no one should hold that sort of ability when it comes to Lydia Martin.

Eventually, the blood and dirt are removed from under her nails and the sheen of grease is a faint memory. Lydia stays under the hot water for longer than she should. She lets the water burn her, lets it prickle down her skin and leave its mark. There’s something cleansing about it. The sting on her skin washes away the memory of her almost scream, washes away the reality expanding in her mind that she could have been mourning Stiles in this instance instead of standing under the stream of a shower, washes away the feeling growing in the pit of her stomach that they could end up being too late and Malia could be another one of their friends in the graveyard.

 _All you really do is find the bodies_.

There’s a catharsis that comes from crying in the shower. It seems like a television stunt, a way to show the audience that this character isn’t as hard as they appear because they do in fact cry when they’re sad, but it’s a cathartic act nevertheless.

Lydia wishes that she could cry over the past few months.

She can’t.

She’s tried.

Instead, she turns off the shower and steps out. The room is almost completely filled with steam that it’s choking. Lydia opens the small window, tries to fan some of it out, but it’s still choking even when half of it’s dispersed. She wraps a towel around herself and wipes down the mirror yet again. There’s a small part of her that wonders whether it would be better to lock herself in here, to hide herself from the reality that awaits her when she opens the door.

But that’s her reality now.

_Lydia Martin, this is your life._

“Jesus, you take a long time in the shower.”

If this was a cartoon, there’s a possibility that her heart might have broken through her sternum.

Lydia doesn’t let her surprise shine through but she thinks Stiles might actually be able to hear the heavy thumping of her heart as he meets her eye. He sits up on the bed that Kira had previously been sitting on.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Lydia asks, unconsciously crossing her arms against her chest to keep her towel in place.

“I came to collect that kiss you offered me,” Stiles says matter-of-factly. Her emotions must finally break through her steely resolve because his hands come in defence and he begins spluttering. “That was a joke, I swear. I just... I don’t know I thought it would be funny. I’m kind of having trouble discerning what’s funny or not lately but I swear that was supposed to be a joke. I’m not here for anything, Lydia. Kira came to our room and it seemed like she wanted to be alone with Scott... Well, she _told_ us that she wanted to be alone with Scott so she gave me your key and I think I’m staying here tonight.”

She doesn’t know what to say so instead, Lydia unfolds her arms and motions down her body with a small, sheepish smile tugging on her lips. “I need to get dressed.”

Stiles bobs his head, pushing himself off the bed with a smile. “And I need a shower, it works out perfectly.”

He practically scarpers into the bathroom. It’s only when Lydia reaches her hand out to grip his plaid that he slows, coming to an abrupt stop as his eyes fall to hers. Lydia doesn’t say anything, just reaches for the towel she had left for Kira and hands it to him.

“Thanks.”

He’s in the process of shutting the door when she turns on her heels to look at him. “You’re still funny, Stiles.”

The compliment seems to perk him up somewhat judging by the grin that slowly spreads across his face but Lydia’s has a hunch that it disappears the moment he locks the door. It seems like such a rare occasion now: smiling. They don’t seem to have many instances of laughter and smiles and general happiness. Scott died, Stiles killed someone in self-defence, Kira left to fix what the Dread Doctors did only to come back to try and find her best friend, Liam lost his first love and Lydia found herself strapped to a bed in Eichen House as a result of Theo. Of all the pack members, Mason was the least traumatized and he had just found out that the supernatural existed and his best friend was a creature of the night.

Lydia waits until she hears the water running to drop her towel. One of the last things she wants is for Stiles to wander back out because he’s forgotten something and see her naked so waiting is the best thing she can do besides getting dressed under the towel but she thinks that would take more effort than it’s worth.

And she’s tired.

Lydia’s so tired.

She’s tired of burying friends. She’s tired of finding the bodies. She’s tired of regressing to the mean.

So when she’s dressed and her towel is long discarded and she can hear the shower being turned off, Lydia stands at the edge of the bed and stares at it. This is what she wanted. She wanted a bed in lieu of yet another terrible accident happening to them. They’re beacons of bad luck and calamity and she wants to believe that it’ll stop once they leave Beacon Hills for what lies beyond but it won’t. They’re werewolves and kitsunes and banshees and survivors and they will never demagnetize; something will always find a way to lure them back into the throng of it. It’ll probably be wearing a V-neck when it does.

“You’re giving that bed a lot of thought.”

His voice breaks through her contemplation and causes her to turn her head in his direction. Stiles is wearing the clothes he wore before and if it was for the fact that he was rubbing the towel on his hair, Lydia might honestly believe that he only went in there for solitude.

But Stiles doesn’t like to be alone.

Not anymore.

It’s easier to dull the voice in the back of his head when he’s surrounded by half a dozen external ones.

“There’s only one bed,” Lydia explains with a wave off her hand like the gesture can swat away all of her true thoughts.

Stiles nods his head in agreement before throwing his towel on to the dresser. “That tends to happen when you ask for three queens. It’d be weird if one room had three beds and the other two had cots.”

She turns on the spot to stare at him with narrowed eyes. “Helpful?”

It’s almost as if the very thought offends him as he falls onto the bed and bounces. “Never.”

The way her eyes roll is completely over exaggerated but it brings a brief smile to his face that’s so reminiscent of the old Stiles and all Lydia wants to do is take a picture for reference. Things are going to get incredibly bad before they get better and she’s not sure how often she’ll see a smile like that from him.

Stiles settles onto one side of the bed, stretching himself out and tucking his hands under his head. There’s a perplexed look in his eyes as his gaze shifts between the empty space next to him and Lydia, who’s still standing at the edge of the bed.

“Are you gonna stand there all night, Lyds?”

A sigh falls from her and she rounds the bed to lay in the empty space. The mattress is lumpy, the sheets reek of nicotine but Lydia knows they could have done much worse in terms of rooms because she’s certain she saw a chalk outline outside one of the rooms on the lower level.

But she is tired.

She’s exhausted.

Maybe her body will mistake her emotional and psychological exhaustion as physical exhaustion and she’ll fall asleep effortlessly.

Maybe she’ll fall asleep curled up next to Stiles and she can pretend that she didn’t almost scream for him and she can pretend like everything’s fine and she can pretend that it’s going to get better before it ever gets worse.

Maybe she can just pretend.

“What’s going on with you and Parrish?”

Or maybe not.

“Excuse me?” Lydia asks, tilting her head on the pillow to look over at him.

“You and Parrish,” Stiles reiterates. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yes, Stiles,” Lydia answers. Her brow furrows and she can feel the indent forming between them that she hopes doesn’t leave a mark. If it does, she’s blaming Stiles and his extraordinary ability to infuriate her with a few simple words.

“So you aren’t sleeping together?”

“Sleeping together would imply that we are _in fact_ doing something, which would contradict my previous statement.”

Stiles sits up, his back pressing against the headboard, and Lydia ignores the feeling of his eyes on her. “I’m just worried about you, Lydia.”

“Well trust me, I have no desire to add ‘jail bait’ to my college applications,” Lydia replies with another roll of her eyes.

When she does finally meet his gaze, she thinks she can actually feel her heart clench. This never would have happened if Kira had been there. Kira doesn’t have the ability to make Lydia’s heart clench. Kira doesn’t hold the ability to piece together the remnants of her bruised and battered heart or decimate it even further. Lydia misses Kira, she was a good roommate to have for a night.

She can’t keep staring at him so she decides to roll onto her side. It’s good that way because she can’t see his eyes. The feeling of them is still there but she can’t see them and she’ll count that as a win.

“Do you have feelings for him?”

The groan Lydia lets out is entirely involuntary.

“Is that a yes?”

“I might actually kill you, Stiles.”

“Do you think you’d scream for me if you killed me or would that be redundant?”

Lydia pushes herself up to rest against the headboard. Their shoulders bump together as she tilts her head to meet his gaze. There’s no trace of humour of light-heartedness when her eyes find his. Not even his expression gives away anything.

“Answer the question, Lyds.”

“Truthfully?”

He takes a moment to deliberate before he eventually nods his head. “Truthfully.”

Her answer comes out instinctively before she can stop herself and form the answer in a less definitive way. Or really, before she form the answer in a way that won’t leave her open to any more questions.

“I could.”

“You could?” Stiles accusatorily echoes. He shifts himself on the bed so that he’s no longer resting against the headboard and is instead facing her.

“I could,” Lydia affirms.

“Is it the age difference?”

And again, just like hitting the patellar ligament with a hammer, her reply falls from her lips before she can stop it.

“No, it’s you, Stiles.”

If he was the same Stiles, he probably would have flailed, fallen off the bed, hit his head and been useless for the rest of the night.

But he’s not the same Stiles.

That Stiles is gone, he was buried when the Nogitsune infested itself inside him. He might have even been buried when Lydia held him under water and watched the life drain from him.

That Stiles is not the Stiles who sits beside her.

This Stiles holds himself straighter. He doesn’t flail like he used to or over gesticulate when trying to prove a point. He does sometimes but they’re no longer the movements of a hyperactive sixteen year old who’s just been thrown into the world of the supernatural, they’re the movements of someone trying to regain the person they once were but failing in spectacular fashion _._

And this Stiles just stares at her, his eyebrows knotting together briefly before he runs his hand over his mouth.

If she was anyone else, a rosy tinge might be spreading across her cheeks. But she’s not. Lydia learnt the hard way that it was better to conceal her feelings so people couldn’t use them against her. It’s why she simply watches him, examines every single change in his expression, while he considers what she said.

“It’s me?” is what he finally says.

Honestly, it’s anti-climactic. She thought there would be something bigger, grander, more Stiles-esque.

Lydia nods her head in lieu of rolling her eyes. “Yes, Stiles, _you_.”

He keeps staring at her, mouth slightly agape, blinking in such an inconsistent manner that she thinks he could be responding in Morse code, before he finally sits back against the headboard. Lydia tilts her head in his direction, watching as he licks his bottom lip.

“Is it my incessant questioning?” he asks with a cocked eyebrow.

“That is a real turn-on,” Lydia retorts instantaneously.

“And my interrogatory expression?”

“Very much so.”

“And my Jeep?”

“Surprisingly, I like it more than the Porsche.”

“And how long are you going to play this game?”

Lydia pushes herself up off the mattress in order to face him. “This isn’t a game, Stiles.”

“You have feelings for me?” Stiles replies, his eyebrows raising almost comically high. He folds his arms against his chest, like he’s trying to protect himself, before he shakes his head. “Okay. Since when, Lydia?”

“Do you want a specific date? Or a chronological detailing of the events leading up to my realization? Or is a simple ballpark figure okay for you?” she asks as she glares at him. She’d never spent a particularly long period of time hypothesizing what it would look like if she ever told Stiles the truth but if she had, she’s certain that this reaction would be nowhere near her ideal response.

Stiles actually has the audacity to laugh. It’s a hollow, heart-wrenching laugh but it’s still a laugh. “I almost died tonight.”

And there it is. There is the evidence to corroborate that creeping feeling under her skin that told her that he already knew. She almost screamed for him and he knew it.

“I almost died,” he restates. “And you’re telling me you have feelings for me?”

She stops herself before her answer comes out reflexively. Kira may not have the ability to piece together the remnants of Lydia’s bruised and battered heart or decimate it even further through a few simple words but Stiles does.

Yet despite this knowledge, Lydia nods her head.

The words that are supposed to accompany the head bob, the infuriating reiteration that she does have feelings for Stiles regardless of his disbelief, are crushed when he surges forward, hands reaching out to cup her face as his lips meet hers.

There’s nothing sweet or soft about the kiss. This isn’t the locker room and she’s not trying to slow his breathing. This is a seedy motel room and he almost died and she’s exhausted and they both need to feel something, even if it’s just for the night.

He’ll leave bruises on her thighs when he grips them.

She’ll leave crescent indentations between his shoulder blades with her nails.

They’ll tell themselves that this won’t change anything but it will.

So, for the night, they’ll feel something and they’ll pretend it’ll transpire into something real and it’ll be okay.

For the night, Lydia has the ability to kiss him and she’ll use it.

**Author's Note:**

> like I said, it got away from me, I've been having a creative dry spell lately but hopefully this was somewhat good.


End file.
